Agree with Mo about map, and Meic Goodyear about color. But rather than coloring shapes it might be better to color bubbles sized according to population. This way we give importance to population instead of land mass.
Something like this: http://i.imgur.com/o0CCW.png

On the book blog, I often talk about the reasons why statisticians adjust data, and why it is necessary in order to paint a proper picture of what the data is saying. (See here or here.) On this blog, I have frequently complained about how the "prior information" on maps is too strong - large re...